News and comments on community broadband networks, the communities deploying them and the technologies that support them. Published by Denise Frey and Al Bonnyman.
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Tuesday, August 05, 2003

"When Gerald Atkins shot and killed a Ford Wixom plant supervisor in 1996, law enforcement agencies that responded realized they had a problem.
The police departments sent to the plant weren't all using the same frequencies. "In that case, there were nine different agencies that couldn't communicate," said Farmington Hills Police Chief William Dwyer."

Since then, local governments have invested extensively in integrating communications, including building a number of communications towers county-wide. To reduce costs and minimize objections from neighboring property owners, tower heights were kept down by using the county-wide fiber network for backhaul instead of using wireless between towers.